Monday, April 9, 2012

2012 Book Reviews First Quarter



This is what the current book list (at the end of the first quarter) looks like:
  1. *7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey
  2. *50 Stories - Kay Boyle
  3. 130 Projects To Get You Into Filmmaking - Grove
  4. 1491 - Charles C. Mann
  5. A Concise History of Indian Art - Roy C. Craven
  6. A History of Democratic Kampuchea - Khamboly Dy
  7. A History of India 1 - Romila Thapar
  8. A History of India 2 - Percival Spear
  9. *A House in Gross Disorder - Cynthia B. Herrup
  10. A Journalist, A General, and An Army in Burma - U Thaung
  11. A Lexicon of Terror - Marguerite Feitlowitz
  12. A Nation in Waiting - Adam Schwartz
  13. A New History of India - Stanley Wolpert
  14. *A Spy's Revenge - Richard V. Hall
  15. A Tale Of Millions: Bangladesh Liberation War - M. Rafiqul Islam
  16. Adventures in the Skin Trade - Dylan Thomas
  17. Agnes Smedley - J.R. & S.R. MacKinnon
  18. Alexander The Great - W.W. Tarn
  19. *Among the White Moonfaces - Shirley Lim
  20. An Advanced History of India - Majumdar, Raychaudhari, & Datta
  21. Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner
  22. Asian Dragons & Green Trade - Simon Tay & Daniel Esty
  23. Back to Mandalay - Gerry Abbott
  24. Bangladesh From Mujib to Ershad, an interpretive study - Lawrence Ziring
  25. Beating the Blues - Thase & Lang
  26. *Before Kampuchea - Milton Osborne
  27. Being Wrong - Kathryn Schultz
  28. *Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
  29. Black Dog of Fate - Peter Balakian
  30. Cambodia Silenced: The Press Under 6 Regimes - Harish Mehta
  31. Cambodia's Hidden Scars - Beth van Schaak, Daryn Reicherter, eds.
  32. Captains of Consciousness - Stuart Ewen
  33. Ceylon - S. Arasaratnam
  34. China's Second Revolution - Harry Harding
  35. Chinese Customs - Henri Dore
  36. Chinese Warlord - The Career of Feng Yu Hsiang - James E. Sheridan
  37. Cinema, Emergence, & The Films of Satyajit Roy - Keya Ganguly
  38. Clarissa - Samuel Richardson
  39. Colonial Masculinity - Mrinalini Sinha
  40. Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
  41. Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
  42. Death of Somoza - Claribel Alegria & Darwin Flakoll
  43. Decolonizing the Mind - Ngugi wa Thiong'o
  44. Desis in the House - Sunaina Maira
  45. Dharma and Development - Joanna Macy
  46. *Digital Filmmaking - Mike Figgis
  47. Discos and Democracy - Orville Schell
  48. *Don Quixote - Cervantes
  49. Dread - The Rastafarians of Jamaica - Joseph Owens
  50. Enemies of the People - Anne F. Thurston
  51. Escape From Tyranny - Zulkifli Ahmed
  52. Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Charles Mackay
  53. Facing the Cambodian Past - David Chandler
  54. Facets of Taoism - Holmes Welch & Anna Seidel
  55. Fighting Spirit of East Timor - Rowena Lennox
  56. *Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce
  57. Fire In The Lake - Frances Fitzgerald
  58. First Person Singular - Joyce Carol Oates
  59. Flash of the Spirit - Robert Farris Thompson
  60. Flashbacks - Morley Safer
  61. Flower Of The Dragon - Richard Boyle
  62. Folklore From Contemporary Jamaicans - Daryl C. Dance
  63. Folklore of Tamil Nadu - S.M.L. Lakshman Chettiar
  64. *Following Ho Chi Minh - Bui Tinh
  65. Gandhi - Louis Fischer
  66. Gandhi's Truth — On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence - Erik H. Erikson
  67. Gangsters and Revolutionaries - Robert Cribb
  68. *Getting Organized - Stephanie Winston
  69. Gotta Have It - Spike Lee
  70. Grasshoppers and Elephants - Wilfred Burchett
  71. Granta on Film
  72. Heritage of China - Contemporary Perspectives on Chinese Civilization - Ed. Paul S. Ropp
  73. Hell In A Very Small Place - Bernard Fall
  74. *Hero And Deity - Pham Quynh Phuong
  75. Herzog - Saul Bellow
  76. Hinduism - Its Historical Development - Troy Wilson Organ
  77. *I Can Make You Thin - Paul McKenna
  78. In One's Own Shadow - Xin Liu
  79. Incursion: From America's Chokehold on the NVA Lifelines to the Sacking of the Cambodian Sanctuaries - J.D. Coleman
  80. India Wins Freedom - Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
  81. Indian Art - Philip Rawson
  82. Indonesian Confrontation - Gabriel Tan
  83. Into Cambodia - Keith William Nolan
  84. IsvarChandra Vidyasagar - Subal Chandra Mitra
  85. Khmers Stand Up! - Justin Corfield
  86. Laogai - The Chinese Gulag - Harry Wu Hong da
  87. *Lempriere's Dictionary - Lawrence Norfolk
  88. Leviathan - Hobbes
  89. Light in August - William Faulkner
  90. Look Homeward Angel - Thomas Wolfe
  91. Mandarins, Jews, and Missionaries - Michael Pollak
  92. Mandate of Heaven - Orville Schell
  93. Masters of Light - Schaefer & Salvato
  94. Meena, Heroine of Afghanistan - Melody Ermachild Chavis
  95. Microeconomic Theory - Gould & Ferguson
  96. Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh - Amy Raphael, ed.
  97. My Traitor's Heart - Rian Malan
  98. Myths About The Ethnic Chinese "Economic Miracle" - Joaquin Sy & Go Bon Juan
  99. Nakshi Kantha of Bengal - Sila Basak
  100. Norodom Sihanouk: My War With The CIA - Wilfred Burchett
  101. One Blood — The Jamaican Body - Elisa Janine Sobo
  102. Orientalism - Edward W. Said
  103. Our Lady of Controversy - Alma Lopez
  104. *Outwitting the Gestapo - Lucie Aubrac
  105. Painting Islam as the New Enemy -
  106. Pearl S. Buck, A Cultural Biography - Peter Conn
  107. Personal Voices - Chinese Women in the '80s - Emily Honig & Gail Hershatter
  108. Physics and Philosophy - Werner Heisenberg
  109. Physiology of the Human Body - Guyton
  110. Popular Songs and Ballads of Han China - Anne Birrele
  111. Primitive Art - Frank Boas
  112. *Prometheus Rising - Robert Anton Wilson
  113. Punjabi Century 1857-1947 - Prakash Tandon
  114. Rasta & Resistance - Horace Campbell
  115. Rastafari Roots & Ideology - Barry Chevannes
  116. Reading Lolita In Teheran - Azar Nafisi
  117. Red China Blues - Jan Wong
  118. Reeducating Chinese Anti-Communists - J.A. Fyfield
  119. Resistance and Reform in Tibet -
  120. Revolution Postponed - Margery Wolf
  121. River of Shadows - Rebecca Solnit
  122. Roots of Rastafari - Virginia Lee Jacobs
  123. Rosie - Anne Lamott
  124. Rural Development in China - Fei Hsiao Tung
  125. Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye (The Biography Of A Master Film-Maker - Andrew Robinson
  126. Sayles on Sayles - Gavin Smith, ed.
  127. Screenwriting 434 - Lew Hunter
  128. Shanghai Refuge, A Memoir of the WWII Jewish Ghetto - Ernest G. Heppner
  129. Sherpas Through Their Rituals - Sherry B. Ortner
  130. Shoot Me - Simonelli & Frumkes
  131. Showdown - Jorge Amado
  132. Singapore Women Re-presented - Constance Singam and Audrey Chin
  133. Sisters in the Resistance - Margaret Collins Weitz
  134. Sisters of Heaven - Gully
  135. Son of the Revolution - Liang Heng & Judith Shapiro
  136. Southern Africa Stands Up - Wilfred Burchett
  137. Strangers Always A Jewish Family in Wartime Shanghai - Rena Krasno
  138. Street Without Joy - Bernard Fall
  139. Stress and Mental Health in Malaysian Society - Tan Chee Khuan
  140. The Adventures of Wu - H.Y. Lowe
  141. The Argumentative Indian - Amartya Sen
  142. The Art of the Novel - Milan Kundera
  143. *The Audacity of Hope - Barak Obama
  144. The Autobiography of An Unknown Indian - Nirad C. Chaudhary
  145. The Bedroom of The Mister's Wife - Philip Hensher
  146. The Bengal Muslims 1871 - 1906 - Ahmed
  147. The British Humiliation of Burma - Terence R. Blackburn
  148. *The Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
  149. The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence - Victor Marchetti & John D. Marks
  150. The City & The City - China Mieville
  151. The Declaration of Independent Filmmaking - Polish, Polish, & Sheldon
  152. The Devil Finds Work - James Baldwin
  153. The Discovery of India - Jawaharlal Nehru
  154. The Dragon Empress - Marina Warner
  155. The Emergence of Modern Turkey - Bernard Lewis
  156. The May 13 Generation - Poh Soo Kai, ed.
  157. The Forgotten Army (Indian Mutiny) - Peter Ward Fay
  158. The Gate - Francois Bizot
  159. The Gene Hunters Biotechnology and the scramble for seeds - Calestous Juma
  160. The Gift - Lewis Hyde
  161. The Great Hedge of India - Roy Moxham
  162. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
  163. The Indonesian Revolution and The Singapore Connection - Yong Mun Cheong
  164. The Journey to the West, Vol. 1 - Anthony Yu
  165. *The Last Emperor - Edward Behr
  166. The Lives of Agnes Smedley - Ruth Price
  167. The March of Folly From Troy To Vietnam - Barbara W. Tuchman
  168. The Men Who Ruled India Vol. I The Founders - Philip Woodruff
  169. The Men Who Ruled India, Vol. II The Guardians - Philip Woodruff
  170. *The Mind's I - Hofstadter & Dennett
  171. The Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson
  172. The New China - Alvin Rabushika
  173. The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes - Arthur Waley
  174. The Origins of Chinese Kongsi - Wang Tai Peng
  175. The Political Economy of Social Control in Singapore - Christopher Tremewan
  176. The Politics of Sri Lanka - Robert N. Kearney
  177. The Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution - Lee Hong Yung
  178. The Portable Dorothy Parker - Brendan Gill
  179. The Rape of Bangladesh - Mascarenhas
  180. The Rastafarians - Leonard E. Barrett, Sr.
  181. The Remembered Village - M.N. Srinivasan
  182. The Rig Veda - Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, transl
  183. *The Rise & Fall of the Knights Templar - Gordon Napier
  184. The Sinkiang Story - Jack Chen
  185. The Soong Dynasty - Sterling Seagrave
  186. The Spirit of Chinese Politics - Lucian Pye
  187. The Story of Zahra - Hanan al-Shaykh
  188. The Ugly Chinaman - Bo Yang
  189. The Unmaking of Malaysia -
  190. The Voice At The Backdoor - Elizabeth Spencer
  191. The Wilting of the Hundred Flowers - Mu Fu Sheng
  192. Third World Filmmaking -
  193. Time Bombs in Malaysia - Lim Kit Siang
  194. Transition to Neo-Confucianism - Anne D. Birdwhistell
  195. Unmasking Najib -
  196. Victims and Perpetrators - Ea Meng-try & Sorya Sim
  197. Visionary Film - P. Adams Sitney
  198. Viet Nam and Ho Chi Minh - Wilfred Burchet
  199. Wanted: Equality and Justice In The Muslim Family - Zainah Anwar, ed.
  200. War and Peace - Tolstoy
  201. When States Kill - Nestor Rodriguez, Cecilia Menjivar, eds.
  202. Who Killed Aung San? - Kin Oung
  203. West Indians And Their Language - Peter A. Roberts
  204. Western Birds - Roger Tory Peterson
  205. Wikileaks - David Leigh & Luke Harding
  206. Wild Swans - Jung Chang
  207. Witness to an Era - Frank Moraes
  208. Women Creating Indonesia: The First Fifty Years -
  209. Women in the Holocaust - Dalia Ofer, Lenore J. Weitzman, Eds.
  210. Writers' Workshop in a Book - Cheuse and Alvarez
  211. Yonnondio - Tillie Olsen
  212. Your Future, My Faith, Our Freedom - Chee Soon Juan
  213. Your Memory: A User's Guide - Alan Baddeley
Second Quarter Reading List in Order:
  1. *Digital Filmmaking - Mike Figgis
  2. *Among the White Moonfaces - Shirley Lim
  3. The May 13 Generation - Poh Soo Kai, ed.
  4. The Political Economy of Social Control in Singapore - Christopher Tremewan
  5. Singapore Women Re-presented - Constance Singam and Audrey Chin 
  6. Your Future, My Faith, Our Freedom - Chee Soon Juan
  7. The Unmaking of Malaysia -
  8. Time Bombs in Malaysia - Lim Kit Siang
  9. Escape From Tyranny - Zulkifli Ahmed
  10. Unmasking Najib -
  11. Stress and Mental Health in Malaysian Society - Tan Chee Khuan
  12. Wanted: Equality and Justice -
  13. Gangsters and Revolutionaries - Robert Cribb
  14. The Indonesian Revolution and The Singapore Connection - Yong Mun Cheong
  15. Indonesian Confrontation - Gabriel Tan
  16. A Nation in Waiting -
  17. Women Creating Indonesia: The First Fifty Years -
  18. Fighting Spirit of East Timor - Rowena Lennox
  19. Asian Dragons & Green Trade - Simon Tay & Daniel Esty
  20. Myths About The Ethnic Chinese "Economic Miracle" - Joaquin Sy & Go Bon Juan
  21. Fire In The Lake - Frances Fitzgerald
  22. Flower Of The Dragon - Richard Boyle
  23. Grasshoppers and Elephants - Wilfred Burchett
  24. Flashbacks - Morley Safer
  25. Viet Nam and Ho Chi Minh - Wilfred Burchet
  26. *Following Ho Chi Minh - Bui Tinh
  27. *Hero And Deity - Pham Quynh Phuong
  28. *Before Kampuchea - Milton Osborne
  29. Facing the Cambodian Past - David Chandler
  30. A History of Democratic Kampuchea - Khamboly Dy
  31. Victims and Perpetrators - Ea Meng-try & Sorya Sim
  32. Incursion: From America's Chokehold on the NVA Lifelines to the Sacking of the Cambodian Sanctuaries - J.D. Coleman
  33. Into Cambodia - Keith William Nolan
  34. Khmers Stand Up! - Justin Corfield
  35. Cambodia Silenced: The Press Under 6 Regimes - Harish Mehta
  36. The British Humiliation of Burma - Terence R. Blackburn
  37. A Journalist, A General, and An Army in Burma - U Thaung
  38. Who Killed Aung San? - Kin Oung
  39. Back to Mandalay - Gerry Abbott
  40. *The Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
  41. *50 Stories - Kay Boyle
  42.  *Getting Organized - Stephanie Winston

Read:

  1. Middlemarch - George Eliot****
  2. The more I read Eliot the more I admire her. What a writer!
    Can You Forgive Her? - Anthony Trollope**
  3. The Butcher Boy - Patrick McCabe***
  4. Murder Through The Looking Glass - Mike Venning Fluff.
  5. Futureland - Walter Moseley***
  6. Phineas Finn - Anthony Trollope**
  7. The End of The Affair - Graham Greene**
  8. The Eustace Diamonds - Anthony Trollope**
  9. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce***
  10. Dubliners - James Joyce***
  11. May 13 - Kua Kim Soong** Good analysis.
  12. The Mighty Wave - He Jin (Transl: Tan Jing Quee, Loh Miaw Gong, Hong Lysa)* Very interesting historically, but not well written.
  13. Rule 34 - Charles Stross Fluff.
  14. Designer Genes - Chee Heng Leng & Chan Chee Koon, eds.***
  15. The Hatchet Man of Singapore - J.B. Jeyaretnam* Only for those with an interest in the political intricacies of Singapore.
  16. Singapore The Air-Conditioned Nation - Cherian George* Tiresomely coy.
  17. Self Censorship: Singapore's Shame - James Gomez*
  18. Foreign Bodies - Tan Hwee HweeAWFUL
  19. Pol Pot - Philip Short****
  20. A History of Cambodia - David Chandler****
Not too shabby, 20 books in three months, considering I was (1) recovering from surgery (2) traveling and (3) dealing with illness all around. Trying for double the number in this quarter, but in my own defense, I've already read quite a few of these, just finishing 'em up, so. It looks like Southeast Asian history/politics is pretty much done for this year! Next for some South Asian history/art/culture/politics.

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